User blog:Bern Unit/Bern Unit - A Changed Man
With Jill still in the hospital, her daughter was left to the care of the babysitter for the time being. Nancy was a trusted friend of Jill’s and Bern would make it a point to stop there and check in on both of them each night since the accident at Metropolis General. Bern often would stand watch over the room that his niece, Luanne was in. He would simply watch her rest and think to himself “I will not let anything hurt you”. Periodically Nancy would pop her head in to check and see Bern standing outside on the terrace. After a small heart attack Nancy often calmed down and nodded to Bern. Images of that day still playing through Bern’s mind followed by the hope that Jill will recover. Bern understood the importance of having a good parent in one’s life as he remembers many a time when he wished he could have gone back and kept the one he had in his life. This was not a fate he wanted for his niece. The next day Bern made his stop by Nancy’s to check on them. The door was a jar and no noise could be heard in the home. “Hello??? Nancy?? It’s Berny….you around??” No response. Bern immediately went to the room where Luanne stayed, she was not there either. Bern felt his stomach sink instantly. He ran through the house calling out to either of the ladies. He came into Nancy’s bedroom to find her frozen in a large block of ice. Shock and panic set in on Bern quickly. “Cold…..” Bern said to himself as he felt his temperature increase, the lava coursing through his body and exposed skin shot from orange to white. Bern left the home with one thought on his mind….”Captain Cold”. Knowing that Cold dabbled in kidnapping, this was not out of character for him, but Bern wondered “Why my sister’s kid?” Bern took to the skies for a better layout of the city and to plot his next move. Doing what he could do to keep him mood and temper in check Bern knew that this couldn’t have happened too long ago as the ice was still drive and the carpet in the room wasn’t even wet from any melting. Bern’s vision shifted from normal to thermal, allowing him to look for any dips that would signal a place to begin looking for Cold. Gazing on the city Bern saw and heard an explosion across town. In addition to the explosion Bern also saw a massive temperature drop nearby, way too cold to be explained by anything normal occurrences, Bern knew it had to be a temperature signature emitted by Cold’s ice gun. Wasting no time, Bern shot towards the identified cold spot. Upon reaching the area of the gun’s temperature signature Bern noticed a second person with Cold. Bern quickly noticed it was The Pied Piper. The two criminals were talking to each other and surveying the fallout from their recent escapade, destroying a small testing facility for Starr Labs. This location was where serums and small grade weapons were tested for effectiveness and/or their potency in applied field combat. Pieper looked to Cold “You think this will work? I mean, you think we can trust the guy?” Cold looked down at Pieper “I guess we are going to find out, he said that if we get the kid to him then he could take care of the rest.” In that moment as Cold spoke to Piper there was a sudden gush of air and Pieper was no longer there. Cold looked around wondering what just happened and in that looked up to the sky and saw a small dot getting larger and larger, quickly at that. A smoking and burning Pied Pieper smashed onto the roof top of the building he once stood with Captain Cold. Bern didn’t know if he killed him and in that moment he didn’t care. Cold looked down at his searing partner in crime and was still trying to figure out what had happened. Shortly after the fall and crash of his partner, a second thud and crash could be heard. Cold turned in the direction of the sound to find Bern rising to his feet. “Oh, hello there my molten friend, how goes the day?” Bern had that thousand yard stare in his white eyes “Where is the child Cold?” Cold smirked, “I think the more fitting question there big guy is ‘why’ the child, don’t you think?” The veins in his body shifted white again, Bern could feel the temperature in his body rising. “I will ask you one more time Cold….where is my niece? I’m not going to ask you again…” Cold laughed “you been gone from them for a while haven’t you? You have no idea who your family is anymore do you? You’re not the only one with secret identities, thought yours isn’t much of a secret now is there Rocky”. Bern lunged towards Cold, making good on his word about not asking a second time. Cold quickly drew his ice gun and squeezed off a few shots at Bern stopping him in his tracks. Cold proceeded to encase all but Bern’s head in a block of ice. “Now listen here pebbles…..something that you need to know…” Cold picked up a piece of concrete from the roof top where Bern landed and began sticking him with it “you are getting yourself into some hot water here” Cold continued to lay into Bern with slab after slab of concrete, when one crumbled he would pick up another. He continued to explain “this is big, really big. Your sister is a very important person to a lot of different people in this changed world.” Strikes continued to land on Bern’s head and he felt consciousness leaving him slowly, not from the strikes but from the temperature drop in his body. “Your sister isn’t just a nurse, she is a chemical engineer hired by Starr Labs and contracted by the military to develop and synthesize exobyte technology for weaponised purposes….super soldier stuff we are talking. Luthor plans to test out the product on the kid first to see how it works and raise the kid as his own super child. You really must have rocks for brains if you bought that whole nurse bit.” Bern could hear Cold’s voice drifting farther away, he heard the name Luther and a surge of fire rushed through him. His eyes gained life again and steam emitted from the block of ice that housed him. Suddenly the ice exploded outward and Bern headed right for Cold. “You are working with Luthor on this??? You handed my family over to that maniac?? His voice grew angrier and louder. The temperature in the area increased. Bern could see the beads of sweat forming on Cold’s face. “Look man, I go where the money is. Luthor said bring him the kid, he named the price and I wasn’t about to say no to that.” Flames shot out of Bern’s skin and he set a blaze to the roof top around he and Cold. “You bastard…….” A fireball shot out of Bern’s hand scorching Cold’s clothes and he proceed to try and put it out before it spread too far on him. Just as he was putting the last bit out he felt the closed hand of Bern strike him across the face. Cold’s vision slowly came back into focus and saw Bern Standing over him. In a moment of panic Cold reached for his gun but it wasn’t at his side. “Looking for this???” Bern held up the gun and with Bern’s boot pressing down on his chest, Cold wasn’t going anywhere. Cold felt the boot heat up more and more, burning through the layers of his clothes and then he felt the sear of the skin on his chest. As Cold screamed in pain Bern stuck the barrel of the gun his Cold’s mouth. The ramblings of Cold played through his head about his sister and her real career and work, about Luthor experimenting on his niece, visions of the attack on the hospital played through his head again, the sound of his sister hitting the pavement, all of this flooded his mind. Bern looked down at Cold and the faint blue light of the cold guns flash washed over Bern and he released the gun which was now frozen to Cold’s tongue and the rest of his insides and flew away. Bern looked down on what he had done…..Pieper charred and lifeless, Cold a human Popsicle. Bern’s temperature increased as did the temperature of the area he was in. Hotter and hotter it rose, Bern flooded with sounds and memories gripped his head trying to make the spinning and the images stop. “AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!” he screamed out, flames cascaded through the skies, widows shattered, brick and concrete crumbled, smoke filled the skies. Bern looked at the charred landscape and felt his heart slow, his breathing returning to normal. Bern flew to the hospital where Jill was being kept and treated. Upon arriving to the room she was in he was met by two military guards with M-16’s. Bern motioned for the door and the two guards moved to stop him and readied their weapons. Bern just looked at them as if to say “not today boys……you don’t want to do that ….” Bern spoke “if you two want to stop me from seeing my sister who is in that room you are going to need to bring a lot more that those pop guns boys….” The two looked at each other nodded, they parted to let him through. Bern entered and sat next to his still unconscious sister. He pulled his mask off and began crying silently gripping the bed rails to hold himself up. ~To Be Continued~ Category:Blog posts